1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a gaming machine and a game control method thereof, in which a common game uses symbol columns different from those used in a unit game.
2. Description of Related Art
Among existing gaming machines, there is a gaming machine including: two or more gaming terminals; terminal controllers respectively provided to the gaming terminal, each of which controllers causes associated one of the gaming terminals to run a game; a center controller for controlling all the terminal controllers. These known gaming machines are disclosed in, for example, U.S. Patent Application No. 2002/0042296, U.S. Pat. No. 6,733,390, U.S. Pat. No. 6,312,332, U.S. Pat. No. 6,142,872, U.S. Pat. No. 6,361,441, U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,459, U.S. Pat. No. 4,283,709, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,003,013.
A terminal controller of a gaming terminal runs a game and awards a payout based on the result of the game independently from another terminal controller of another gaming terminal. The center controller provides a common game, in which two or more players compete against one another for various jackpots, such as a progressive jackpot and a mystery jackpot, through the gaming terminals. Thus, how to run a common game at each gaming terminal has traditionally been an important element of improving the entertainment characteristic in the gaming machine having the plurality of gaming terminals.
The object of the present invention is to provide a gaming machine having a function of running a common game capable of realizing a high entertainment characteristic, and a control method of the gaming machine.